Expectations
by tastewithouttalent
Summary: "If Akane hadn't already known his weapon partner was tossing and turning in the other room rather than sleeping the stress across his features would tell the story itself." The night before the battle on the moon, Clay and Akane both can't sleep.
1. Tomorrow

It's well past midnight when the bedroom door creaks open. Akane doesn't look up from the book he's been not-reading for the last two hours; he doesn't need to see Clay's face to know what expression the other boy is making.

"Glad you finally decided to emerge," he says, making a show of setting an unneeded bookmark between the pages before he snaps the book shut. "I thought you'd never come out."

"I was trying to sleep," Clay says, his tone dropping into habitual defensiveness at Akane's teasing. "We should get some rest before tomorrow."

"But you weren't," Akane says, setting the book aside so he can look up instead. Clay is leaning against the wall of the hallway, slouched in sideways with his arms crossed over his chest like he's cold in spite of the warmth in the air. There's a crease in his forehead, unusual strain caught at the corners of his eyes and mouth, and if Akane hadn't already known his weapon partner was tossing and turning in the other room rather than sleeping the stress across his features would tell the story itself.

He slides back a little farther on the couch, aiming for the appearance of relaxation since he can no more manage the reality than Clay can. "Come here."

Clay comes. Usually he'd come around the edge of the couch, drop to slump over one arm or maybe stretch out to tangle himself with Akane; it's a symptom of the tension in his shoulders that he sits beside it this time, leaves the line of his shoulders and the back of his neck for Akane's gaze while he tucks his knees up to his chest and presses his face into their cover. It doesn't offer him much defense from Akane's understanding, but then, it's not Akane he's hiding from.

"I'm scared," he mumbles into his knees.

Akane doesn't sit up. What he does do is turn sideways, shift his weight so he can half-curl around Clay's bowed head. When he reaches out to brush his fingers against yellow hair Clay sighs, a shuddery gasp of air like he's just now remembering how breathing is supposed to work.

"I tried to sleep," he says, confession spilling unprompted from his lips. "I really did. But I was lying there in the dark thinking about tomorrow and I-"

There's a pause, a catch in Clay's words that doesn't allow for coherent continuation. Akane wants to offer comfort, wants to tell him that it'll be alright, that they'll be fine, that they'll both come home safe and whole. But his throat won't work, the lie of certainty is too big for him to put voice to, and all he can offer is a harder press of his fingers, a tight hold against the back of Clay's neck like he's holding him steady while his own heart pounds itself into resonant adrenaline to match Clay's.

"I don't want to die," Clay says into his knees, a tiny, childish plea that makes him years younger all at once, the wide-eyed wheat-haired child he was when Akane met him, and something in Akane snaps into a keening note of pain. "I don't want you to die."

"Clay," Akane says, and then that's all he can manage, because his throat is closing up and his eyes are burning hot with the threat of tears.

"I _don't_." Clay's shoulders are trembling, the motion running all up his spine to where Akane's fingers are braced against him, but they're not steadying each other out, it's just making the motion worse. "I mean I don't want anyone to die but I can't - Akane, what if I can't protect you?"

"What if _I_ can't protect _you_?" Akane blurts, and Clay's head comes up at whatever note of agony is in his throat. He didn't mean for that, he didn't want the clear trust in those blue eyes to see him shatter but he can't call it back now, even ducking his head isn't enough to hide the sudden spill of tears across his cheeks. "What if the Madness gets to me and I...and I…"

He can't say it. There's too much darkness there, too many nightmares realistic enough even before the Kishin's awakening. It's in his blood, the legacy he can't shake off, printed clear across his eye for anyone to see, and he can't breathe, panic is choking him and his vision is going blurry and-

There are arms around him, a desperate grab at his waist. Akane sucks in a choking gasp of air and the world clears, enough to show Clay pressed against his shirt and breathing long stuttering inhales against the fabric.

"You won't," Clay says, the sound muffled by the cloth and broken by his choppy breathing but clear nonetheless. "We'll be alright, we _have_ to be."

Akane's touch at Clay's hair is harder than he means it to be, desperation written into the tension of his fingers and strain in his arm. But Clay takes it as it's meant, the encouragement Akane can't speak for the ache in his throat, and when he moves again it's to rock up on his knees and press himself in against Akane as he drapes the majority of his weight over the other boy.

Neither of them speak much, after that. For a while Clay breathes with the catch of panicked sobs against Akane's neck while Akane tightens his arms around the other boy like he can keep the danger of the morning at bay by the force of his hold. Eventually Clay does drift into sleep, deep enough to keep him from the nightmares Akane expects for himself if he gives in to unconsciousness.

Akane doesn't sleep. He keeps his too-tight hold around Clay's waist, clinging to him until his arms are shaking from the effort, breathes in the sun-hot smell of blond hair and the faint damp of tan skin like he's breathing clarity into his blood, heat to push back the darkness of his thoughts. He doesn't know if he'll still have this tomorrow, but for right now he does, and for right now, it's enough.


	2. Today

It's full dark by the time they make it back to the apartment.

Akane can't even keep track of what they've been doing. There was the fight, of course, so frantic and adrenaline-laden it feels now like it was days ago, a distant memory instead of something a few hours hence. Then the celebration, startled relief surging out into the crowd, and there was no time for he and Clay to speak, no chance to do more than reach in unison to tangle their fingers together in a hold so bruisingly forceful it spoke for them. Then the debriefing, half-shouted over the continuing noise of joy from the crowd, and then dinner, and then the long walk home, the longer for the unsteady pace they set from exhaustion. Akane doesn't try to speak; he can feel words, hazy in the back of his head, and they'll demand expression before he can sleep. But he's not sure what he'll say, yet, won't manage more than incidental control over the words when he choose to let them free, so he waits, makes the trip back to their apartment and up the stairs in silence. Clay doesn't say anything either; he's holding to Akane's hand, still, the same too-tight grip he set when they first grabbed at each other, and the small bones in Akane's hand are aching from the force but he makes no effort to pull away.

Akane's the one who unlocks the door, turns the key to the weight of the deadbolt and pushes it open. They're still in the doorway for a breath, the dark of the room as strangely cool as if they had been gone far longer than a day; then Clay reaches out, fumbles against the wall for a moment, and the lights flicker on to cast everything almost-familiar again. The shape of things are just as they left them - the couch in the corner, the books on the table, the line of shoes by the door. It's just that everything is a little too neat, drawn into deliberate tidiness that shows the marks of Akane's anxiety, the whisper in the back of his head that _you probably won't come back_. It feels wrong, somehow, to step into the space he left with the expectation of death hanging over him, and for a moment neither of them move, just linger long in the doorway.

Then Akane glances sideways. Clay's not looking at him; he's staring at the room, his eyes wide and clear with only the idle motion of his teeth digging at his lip to speak to his abstraction. His eyelashes are gold in the light, his features breathtakingly real in the warmth of the illumination, and affection hits Akane like a physical force, slamming into him and pushing all the breath out of his lungs in a gasp.

" _Clay_ ," he breathes, spilling the name over his tongue, and he's reaching before the weapon has turned, pressing his free hand to the curve of Clay's neck before the blond's eyes have widened in reaction to his voice. _This_ is familiar, the heat of life radiant under his fingertips and Clay's blue eyes shocked and staring at him, and when Akane takes a breath he finds it turns into a sob of relief in his throat.

"Oh my god," he says, and he's dragging his hand free of the deathgrip Clay's kept on it all day, pressing aching fingers in to catch Clay's face between both his palms. "You're okay."

Clay chokes, the stickiness in his throat converting into a laugh instead of tears, and Akane gasps another lungful of relief, of _gratitude_ to some unrecognized god that has let him keep this, the startled joy of Clay's laugh and the warmth of Clay's skin and the support of Clay's arms coming around his shoulders.

"Yeah," and there's another laugh, a little frantic and a little damp but mostly warm and delighted and shocked. "Are you only just getting that?" Clay's smiling, now, his mouth curving wide and open in spite of his attempts to fight it back, like all his hysterical amusement is spilling up into his eyes and lips.  
"You always tell me _I'm_ the slow one."

"Clay," Akane says again, or tries to say. The name turns into a wail in his throat, spills wet and hot at his eyes, and suddenly he's crying, tears spilling over to course down his cheeks with as much force as if he'd been holding them back for weeks. Clay's smile slips, there's a startled, "Akane?" but Akane can't manage reassurance, can only shake his head and rock in to press his forehead to the weight of Clay's jacket.

With his weapon's shoulder to support him, Akane can let himself sag into the exhaustion of the day, can let all the shaky panic of the morning finally tremble up his spine and weaken his knees. The tears, too - regret for a future averted, pain of a loss that never came - are a product of the day, expectation averted so suddenly Akane hasn't had a chance to bleed them off.

So they stand there instead, not-quite inside the apartment that is theirs still, again, and Akane sobs his relief into Clay's shoulder, and feels a future forming for him with every inhale.


	3. Yesterday

It's the recoil that snaps Akane back into sanity.

Everything had been hazy, mismatched scenes and too-wide smiles and blank black eyes, blood and pain and noise, noise like static grating in his ears just shy of coherency. He's straining for that, reaching for some kind of understanding, when there's a jolt at him arm, an impact from a punch or from someone trying to grab him. His reaction is instant - fall back by a step, get his feet under him in the rolling confusion of a world gone sideways, swing his right arm wide. The motion is too fast, something missing from the balance, but he doesn't have time to figure out what's absent, has no time for thought at all; his footing gives way at the lack of expected resistance but his left hand comes through anyway, slams hard against the shadowy attacker in front of him. There's a burst of energy, blinding light arcing behind his eyelids and casting the shadow of his star-marked eye into relief over the world around him, and when he jolts backwards the haze of Madness falls away from him, leaves him stumbling to catch his balance and blinking blur from his eyes just in time to see Clay collapse at his feet.

Understanding is instantaneous. Akane's fingertips are still snapping static when his knees hit the floor, his lungs still stalled in the first rush of panicked denial when he grabs at Clay's shoulder. There's explanation bright as knives in his mind - the touch was no attack but reassurance, it was the weight of an overlarge sword his hand was missing - but his hands are cold, Clay's skin deathly icy even through the fabric of his shirt, and when Akane pushes him over he goes bonelessly, heavy with lack of life. His eyes are wide, blank of recognition and absent any motion, his lips parted on the syllables of Akane's name the meister didn't hear. Akane doesn't need to check for a pulse, not with the absence in Clay's familiar blue eyes, and besides his hands are - wet, wet with blood, crimson color spilling between his fingers like a waterfall. He snatches his hand away but it's too late, there are gruesome fingerprints staining Clay's shirt and collecting against his skin, and Akane doesn't remember touching the weapon's face but they're there too, bleeding into his hair and smeared across his lips like Akane's tried to force life back into the other boy's still body. Akane chokes, his lungs refusing to work on air that's gone thick as jelly, his sight swimming blurry with tears but when he lifts his hands to his face it's blood on his skin, Clay's blood spilling from his pores and drenching his sleeves to his elbows and he's smudging his glasses, he's not wearing his glasses, his fingers are pressing against his Madness-cursed eye and he's-

Awake, he's gasping air around the panicked flutter of his heart and there's a hand at his shoulder and a voice in his ear, "Fine, you're fine, Akane, it's okay," and he's staring wide-eyed into darkness.

"Clay?" His motion is desperate, a grab forward at nothing before he thinks to turn over and the nighttime dark gives way to the faint outline of Clay's face behind him. Akane's throat closes on relief, his chest shudders into sudden relaxation, and he's shaking, his entire body trembling with aftershocks of panic so intense he feels disoriented and detached from the world.

"It's okay," Clay says again, and there's an arm around Akane's shoulders, dragging him in over sweat-damp blankets to press against a familiar chest. Akane has his fingers twisted into Clay's shirt - he doesn't even remember grabbing at it - and for a minute he can't make himself let go, even with his arm pinned awkwardly between them. His brain is skidding through checklists, pressing attention against his hands, his vision, his skin, checking for any evidence of what he can remember, the heavy spill of blood over his skin and the star overlaid on his vision proof of his descent into Madness.

"Nightmares?" Clay asks, his voice overloud in the dark of the room.

Akane takes a breath, lets it out. It shakes on his tongue. "Yeah." He's reaching for the shape of the events, trying to piece them back together, but the logic is melting away as he parses it, the separate events disjoint as they didn't seem at the time. The only thing left is the adrenaline still holding him shaky and wide-eyed, the aching sense of impossible loss that is keeping his hand tight against the heartbeat-warm of Clay's shirt.

Clay doesn't ask what the dream was about. He doesn't have to - they've both had enough of them since the Moon, taking turns with shadows and illusory blood. The worst was the first night, when they started Resonating in their sleep and woke up with memories of the same scenes in their heads; after that it's been better, with one or the other of them steady enough to stroke soothing pressure against the other's back while consciousness takes the edge off the vivid images.

By the time Clay's fingers are winding up to feather through Akane's hair Akane can work his fingers loose, can get an arm up to catch around Clay's waist and pull him in closer. With his forehead pressed to the heat of the weapon's shoulder the shadows lose their threat, Akane can shut his eyes without fear of seeing red-stained skin behind his eyelids.

He might not get back to sleep. It's not always possible, depending on when they wake up and how bad the dream was. But he can relax, with Clay against him, can let himself slide into the haze of almost-sleep if not full unconsciousness.

It will get better. Akane can hear Clay's breathing over him, can feel his own pulse slowing and steadying out of fright, and even in the dark of the blacked-out Moon he knows that dawn will come to them.


End file.
